US Hoping to Issue National Export Strategy in 'Coming Months,' Official Says

The Commerce Department is close to completing its work on a national export strategy, said Grant Harris, the International Trade Administration's assistant secretary for industry and analysis. Harris said he hopes the administration releases the strategy, which will outline efforts to increase foreign market access for U.S. manufacturers, farmers, carmakers and other industries (see 2104220033), in the “coming months.”

Harris, speaking during ITA’s Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness meeting Oct. 12, said the strategy will address “core Biden-Harris administration priorities,” including promoting clean technology exports and export promotion for small and “underserved” businesses. “There'll be a lot of priorities included in this,” Harris said. It will cover how the U.S. can “be as strategic as possible in expanding U.S. manufacturing and enhancing private sector competitiveness in infrastructure development, and creating more opportunities across the board for farmers, ranchers, fishers, etc.”

Part of the work to promote U.S. exports includes working to remove foreign trade barriers, said Arun Venkataraman, assistant secretary for global markets. He said the U.S. is currently working with India to prevent it from moving forward with a personal-data protection law that could “impose significant restrictions” on companies’ ability to move data while also putting in place data disclosure requirements. Venkataraman said some of that data would include trade secrets.

“We've been working with the Indian government to support industry and raise concerns about that,” he said, adding that India “just pulled down” the bill. “We're not out of the woods yet, but that's one example where we were able to be effective in working with the Indian government to combat existing barriers.”

He also said the agency recently worked with Thailand to stop it from imposing labeling and testing requirements on motorcycles that would have violated World Trade Organization rules. “We were able to use those rules to pressure Thailand ultimately to modify those testing requirements in support of American exports,” Venkataraman said.

The agency also is working to promote certain exports in China despite the broad restrictions the U.S. is placing on certain advanced technology exports to the country (see 2210070049). Venkataraman said “there are a number of sectors” in China that don’t “raise the types of security concerns or other issues that you see in” China’s technology and military sectors. “So we want to make sure that our companies can compete in the Chinese market and win in the Chinese market,” he said, “because it's an important market for a number of sectors.”

But Venkataraman also acknowledged that many companies may be looking to diversify away from China to shore up their supply chains. “That has created opportunities for a number of other countries around the world to be alternatives that can be incorporated into global supply chains,” he said, adding that the U.S. is working with trading partners, including in the Indo-Pacific region, “to strengthen these economies as potentially attractive destinations” for U.S. exporters.

Harris, who said he works as part of Commerce’s team on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., added that he is thinking regularly about “investment screening and what China’s industrial policy and impact is having on particular supply chains.” He specifically pointed to the critical minerals supply chain. “That’s a great example of where we're thinking in helping U.S. industries compete,” Harris said. “There needs to be access to these critical minerals,” which will help the U.S. “maintain and continue its technological edge.”

One committee member asked whether the U.S. is concerned that Chinese companies manufacture a majority of global containers. The person pointed to a March report from the Federal Maritime Commission that said three Chinese manufacturers produce more than 95% of the world total.

Stephen Lyons, the Biden administration's port and supply chain envoy, said he is more concerned about China’s rising technological capabilities than its container dominance. “I don't equate containers with computer chips or some other high-tech kinds of things,” Lyons said. “And I don't think it's an all-or-nothing in terms of on-shoring.”

Although he said diversification “beyond China is important for many things,” he doesn’t view containers as a “high-risk” issue. “I think you've got to look at each of these sectors, and come to the conclusion about what the risk is, how much if any resiliency exists,” Lyons said, “and how you would recover in the event of a major disruption.”